


Three

by lemurious



Series: Only A Fairy Tale [3]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fairy Tales, Ficlet, Gen, Post-Fourth Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 18:15:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30076329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemurious/pseuds/lemurious
Summary: So few of us remain, and yet the woods are fading even faster.The ones who had survived past the Third Age, and the Fourth, and well into the times when their history became another fairy tale.
Series: Only A Fairy Tale [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2209269
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	Three

All good tales follow patterns. _A long time ago, in a land far away…_ _West of the Moon, East of the Sun_ , except that the land was there long before the first sunrise, and all three of them remember their wonder and terror at the scorching light that shone straight onto their wars and turned their starlit heroism into sludge of bloody snowmelt.

 _Three_ , is another pattern. Two of a kind and one just slightly different. _Two full brothers, one half brother,_ as in that old tale favored by all.

They met at the crossroads, swords drawn in a heartbeat. _I would kill you for what your kinsmen have done to mine_ , two voices spoke in unison.

_For the bloodshed in Doriath. For shutting the gates of Lórien while our armies bled and starved outside for three ages._

_Nothing worse than what both of yours have done to mine,_ the third cut through their threats with a sneer.

United against a common enemy, they turned around, and he offered them a flask of wine instead of a sword. _Looks like we all wished to claim this forest. So few of us remain, and yet the woods are fading even faster. We may just have to share. Desperate times and all that._

They were known as the Others. The Fair Folk. To their local village, simply as the Three. Two of a kind, a dark-haired Noldo with a harp, a silver-haired Sinda who nobody now called the Lord of the Golden Wood, for the wood was merely green in the summer and barren in winter. And the third, a soldier of the iron crown from armies dark and twisted by the tales. Held to this land by doom, and by love, and by lack of better options.

Among themselves, the Three did not need to hide who they were, and pretended it was less of a relief than they felt. They helped each other build their dwellings, and taught the villagers masonry, and weaving, and healing. They had to admit they knew nothing of farming.

When the villagers were called to war, not one of the Three could force themselves to pick up a sword again, not even to instruct. When less than half came back, they wept bitter tears of shame and powerlessness, and sang a ballad to remember the names of those who had failed to return, and finally found comfort in each other.

**Author's Note:**

> Continuing the ficlet series: introducing the "Fair Folk" of the forest.


End file.
